Surviving High School with a Teenage Son

Raising a teenage son comes with its challenges—shifting moods, boundary-pushing, and the constant pull of screens. So how do you guide them through high school while keeping your relationship strong? In this episode, I sit down with a panel of experts to tackle the biggest parenting struggles, from getting them to open up to setting rules that actually work. Tune in for practical strategies to navigate these years with more confidence and less frustration.

WHO’S ON THE PANEL?

Sheila Akbar, President & CEO, Signet Education

Your host, and Signet’s resident admissions and test-prep expert, Sheila has worked with hundreds of students and parents through learning challenges.

Emmaline C, Executive Function Specialist

Emmaline has a Master’s in Child Development from the Harvard School of Education and has helped hundreds of our clients effectively talk to their kids about accepting help.

Blair M, Academic Skills Coach and School Director

As one of our top coaches and the Director of an excellent private school in Ohio, Blair brings years of experience from both sides of the equation.

Andrew F, Academic Skills Coach

One of our most popular academic coaches with teenage boys. After a call with Andy, kids go from skeptical to sold that a better way is possible for them.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus & Diane Dempster, Parenting Experts

Elaine and Diane are Co-Founders of Impact Parents, and bring to the table vast experience working with parents of neurodiverse children and teens.

Access resources here: https://signeteducation.com/events/

Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Transcript

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 0:00

Parenting is a daily process in letting go. We have to let go of what we expect it to be, or want it to be, or think it should be, to allow it to be what it is, and to allow them to be who they are. And that's as to what you were saying earlier. That's our work, right? We have to get our stuff out of the way so that we can be present to who they are and what their journey is, instead of trying to make sure they're fulfilling our journey.

Sheila Akbar: 0:40

Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast. It's now the end of April. Time is flying, of course, and today's episode is actually a replay of a recent panel discussion I moderated on surviving high school with a teenage boy. The idea for this panel came from just the sheer number of young men we end up working with around executive function support, helping them keep up and stay organized in school, and what their parents might call getting them engaged or getting them motivated, and you'll hear this in the panel. There's no silver bullet for any of this, but we have been doing this work for quite a while, and have learned a couple of tricks we want to share them with you. And so I put together this panel that has parenting experts, developmental psychology expert, and then a couple of our male coaches to share their experience and their wisdom and their perspectives with you. So I'll just cut this short, and we'll go straight to the replay. We do lots of stuff at Signet, from tutoring, test prep, college admissions, one of the things that we really enjoy doing, because it is so impactful, is executive function coaching for our students. And so today, I've convened a really wonderful panel of experts to talk to us about why sometimes seeing a teenage boy through high school can be challenging, and a lot of times it has a lot to do with their executive function skills still being in development. So I'm excited that you're here, and I hope that the experts on our panel can offer you even more hope and some wisdom and maybe even some next steps. So I'll start with some very brief introductions. First, we have Elaine Taylor Klaus, who is one of the founders of a group called Impact parents that works with the parents of complex kids to help create the conditions for success in the home. She has a whole bunch of experience, and every time I hear her talk, I learn something, and I've been listening to her for a very long time, so she's full of wisdom. Thank you for joining us. Elaine, I'm also going to introduce introduce Emmaline. Emmaline is actually an account manager here at Signet, so if you have ever called to set up services or ask questions about how we do things, she's probably the person you talk to. She also has an undergraduate master's degree in the field of developmental psychology. She's the person I go to when I have questions about what's really going on under the surface and what does the research say. And she's a little bit like an encyclopedia, but also extremely compassionate and hilarious, and one of my favorite people. I'll also introduce Andy, who is one of our coaches. Now, he's been working with Signet for, I want to say, more than seven years, but I might not have that right. Andy does a lot of things here. He works with students on their act and their SAT he helps students with their college essay writing, and he is one of our top coaches. I think Andy is really great at relating to all kinds of people, but especially our teenage boys. And I just think that's a magical quality, because it's very hard to do. So you'll hear some stories from Andy around that too. And then soon to be joining us is Blair, who is also a signet coach. He's also the head of a private school in the Midwest, so he sees a lot of this in his day job, but then, you know, has some specific stories to share with you about the students that he's been able to coach through the challenges that they're facing. We have some people who are worried that their kids are not achieving their potential. There is family tension. There are people who don't really spend much time on homework when you're pretty sure there's homework to be done. There are challenges in communication, there are procrastination issues, there's a lot of emotional tension around school, right? And I think these are, you know, very common problems. And I I want to start off by asking Andy, if you will, what are some of the most common challenges you've seen in the boys that you've coached?

Andrew Friedman: 4:47

Well, I guess we're sort of trying to, you know, toe the line between not essentializing teenage boys as a as an age or gender, but also we can't ignore that there are definitely some tendencies and some scientific facts there. But I would say with teenage boys, and I know some of this firsthand, been one a few decades ago, there's sort of a an air of apathy, which is very cool to put forth. You know, I think that this is true in high school, in general, and well beyond high school, but there's this sort of affected apathy that I take as one of my tasks to try to breach, you know, in as gentle a way as possible, without removing any sort of air of coolness, trying to maintain that. Because I don't, I don't want to undermine that. I see a lot of kind of a Cavalier kind of nonchalance when it comes to there's sort of like I got it attitude, you know? And so I have to be extra careful with some of them about setting up measures of accountability, right? And so one thing I see a lot is exactly what you're saying. All the other kids have homework. But, you know, I asked my kid, and they're like, Oh, good. Nothing happened. Or why, you know, that grade, why is there a zero for that? Great, oh, they just haven't marked it yet. You know, it's the, it's the system, or something like that. So, you know, I try to, I try to trust, on the one hand, because I developing that trust is absolutely essential for any kind of work we're going to do. But if I were to generalize with boys, I tend to verify as well, not solely through their parents, because I don't want them to sort of catch me going behind their backs, slash. I don't want to go behind their backs. I don't want to undermine that basic trust, but verify with them as well, right? Not in a babysitter sort of way, but in the kind of coaching way that we do things which is very question oriented, very student oriented, and to say, Okay, well, you say you got it. Let's try that out. That tends not to work. And then we'll say, Okay, well, what sorts of measures do you want to put in place so we're not missing so many assignments. So it's definitely a collaborative, creative effort. I'm not there to kind of be their drill sergeant. So yeah, those are some of the things. There's many more, but I'd also love to hear from other folks.

Sheila Akbar: 7:08

Yeah, let's open it up.

Emmaline Cook: 7:09

Emmaline, since you have sort of studied this, but also because you talk to everybody, what do you hear as chief complaints? I think that kind of even for thinking of basic executive function. It's like getting started. It's a piece of it is maybe they genuinely don't remember what homework they have because they don't write it down, and they just think they'll remember from listening. But then, actually, you know, what is the first step? If it's a paper, you know, do you start with an outline? If Do you start doing research? Kind of those like very specific, mechanical steps can be hard to lock down on phone calls that I have of parents that are calling us for coaching help. A lot of it is just pure procrastination, and a lot of it is like, Well, I do that too, so how is my student gonna not do that? And there are lots of different ways to do that.

Sheila Akbar: 7:59

Sure. Elaine, what do you hear from the parents who come to work with you for help?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 8:03

You know, I'm interested, as you started describing what you saw in the chat, I was ticking off the boxes of the six key areas of executive function that Dr. Brown has identified in research that shows this is the six areas of executive function that our kids tend to have developmental delays in and are struggling with and so, and you just kind of hit them, it's like, it's organization, it's emotion, it's effort, it's, you know, activation, it's focused, like, so, so I think that our kids are struggling with all the different aspects of what it takes To to move from thinking about something to remembering it to to figuring out how to act on it, to acting on it following through. And you know, we have to remember that their brains aren't fully cooked, and whether they are complex kids, like I call them, you know, kids with learning disabilities or ADHD or autism, of that kind of thing, or whether they're neuro normative kids, their brains are still developing for a while now, not till their mid 20s are they going to be fully cooked, and so they've got some delays in executive function that they're not quite able to execute on. And we adults look at it and worry that they haven't gotten there yet, when developmentally it may actually be reasonable that they haven't quite gotten there yet. We like to say that if they haven't been if they can't do something consistently about 80% of the time, then that may be an indicator that they may not be ready for that skill set, independently, completely, independently, yeah.

Sheila Akbar: 9:38

Yeah, that's a great segue. I'll go back to you Emmaline to talk a little bit more of about that developmental perspective. So I love Elaine that you're using this language of the brain's not fully cooked yet, and we know this whole process, of course, they're learning and developing and growing from when they're born until their mid 20s, but particularly in adolescents. There's a whole rewiring of their brain that doesn't happen in a linear fashion. It also happens in like, fits and starts. It can create new problems that were not there before. So talk to us about what's actually happening in their brains online.

Emmaline Cook: 10:17

Well, one piece for teenagers, obviously, is hormones. There's a lot going on there in terms of, like impulse control and thinking and things. But I think also with impulse control, a pretty accepted notion of teenagers is that they don't have any and that their prefrontal lobe isn't fully developed. And, you know, that's just like, kind of comes with the territory. But I think that that then drops off when we think about, like, the actuality of what's happening with teenagers, you know, like Elaine was saying, it's not that somebody is lazy or that they, like, can't figure something out. It might truly be a neurological thing, and that might be something that they grow out of, or it might be something that you need to, kind of, like, build a tool set around. But, yeah, we were just talking about this in our psych lecture today. Of it's literally, you're building new, like neural connections, and it's you have to myelinate that. It's all these science things, and these are not happening until they're like, 18 19, like, it does go on into your early 20s.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 11:19

Or mid to late 20s, depending on the kid, a lot of our it's going to be more like their later 20s.

Sheila Akbar: 11:25

Right. And this takes me into some of the maybe more structural and social factors that may speed up or slow down our perception of the development of those skills, right? Because there's also all of this we have to remember, is all relative. There's no guideline that says by age 16, these skills need to be at this spot right when we're norming these things, we're norming them against other kids their age. And when big things happen that affect everybody, I'm thinking about things like COVID, well, that's going to shift your norms, right? So what you may have expected for your older child, what felt like a normal developmental, you know, progression, for your older child, who maybe went through their teenage years before COVID Or the tail end of COVID, something else may be really happening for your younger child, right? And that doesn't mean one of them is normal and the other one's not normal. It just means there are a lot of factors that play into this. So Emmaline, I'll go back to you talk a little bit about those social factors.

Emmaline Cook: 12:31

Social factor, I think, if you know, if we are looking at kind of the gender binary, male versus female, there definitely is a pressure for female teenagers to be more organized, to be more put together. It's a boys will be boys, sort of situation when it comes to adolescence and social pressures. There's also, you know, we think about, if your student is doing well in school, then the rest of it doesn't matter. And so this kind of pressure, of like, if they're getting good grades, they're probably fine, but they're spending way more time than their peers are on a task that they might need to not spend that much time on. So just also, like viewing it in that societal way, because I think for teenagers, kind of the only metric we have is how they're doing in school. It could be also friends, relationships, sports and all the things, but I think when grades are fine, the rest of it feels fine. And I just want to make a quick note also that we all have all of these executive functions or dysfunctions. It becomes ADHD or into territories of other, you know, learning differences, diagnoses, if it's inhibiting your child, your teenager, but everyone will struggle with one or another of these at some point, regardless of any other diagnosis for the rest of their lives.

Sheila Akbar: 13:52

Yeah, we all do, yeah. Blair, thank you for joining us. I wanted to touch on your perspective of this, and you mentioned this a little bit before you joined us, but boys like to play it cool a little bit. There's a lot pressure for them play it cool. So how do you see that affecting their ability to get things done, their desire to get certain things done, or their ability to accept help or ask for it?

Blair Munhofen: 14:19

I mean, I think that's it for the parents and caregivers out here. I think the motivation piece is oftentimes one of the most challenging, because a lot of times what you'll have with with teenage boys is, I wouldn't call on we because it's, it's not like a despair necessarily, as much as like a pretty vanilla like, I'm not really sure I like hanging out my friends. I enjoy playing this sport or I enjoy playing this video game. And the idea that you get really, really excited about something can sometimes be hard. I think one of the things that I like to encourage students that have worked with, whether it's through like an academic coaching type of environment or in the school where I work is honestly being really patient, asking questions, and a lot of like, well, tell me more about that, because I think it's, it's oftentimes the the first question, you know, is not going to lend itself to a whole lot of information. And I think it's really easy as adults to be like, well, I asked you the question, why don't you, why don't you respond? And it's like, well, it might need to be a couple more questions or a couple more follow ups. And so I think being persistent without nagging is sometimes a really difficult line, because I do think it involves, like asking questions, and you know more of those. Well, tell me more about that, or why did you really enjoy it? But I do think there's also sometimes diminishing returns when you start asking the same question over and again. So I think that there's sometimes a little bit more art than science to it, but I think recognizing, and, you know, really trusting in the process that over time, they're going to find it, but it's not necessarily going to happen on the timetable that you're most comfortable with, and that can be a challenge, where we have to do our own work of developing that kind of patience.

Sheila Akbar: 16:06

Yeah. I mean, you just like, hit the nail on the head. I have a seven year old son, and it's like, you can't ask the same question the same way over and over, I just sound like a broken record, and obviously it gets us nowhere. Elaine, I know you have a lot to say about why our children aren't maybe answering our questions or accepting help. What can you share with us about that?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 16:27

Well, there's, there's so many things I want to say about everything you have said so far. Because I think you know, when I think back to the beginning, Andy, you were talking about trust and collaboration, right? And I think fundamentally, you know, and both you and Blair were talking about, you know, apathy around we or what looks like apathy, or this cavalier attitude with boys. And I think very often it's more of a self protected kind of if I don't look like I care too much, then I'm not going to look bad if I don't hit the metric right, whatever it is. So there's, there's a lot that's going on. One of my kids said to me, once, don't you see Mom, if I haven't done it, I haven't done it wrong. And that really, you know, there's, there's this underlying perfectionism that we don't realize they've got, that looks like they don't care. But that's actually a perfectionism in many of these kids. So when I think about, so the question you asked is about asking for help, and there are a lot of reasons our kids don't either ask for or are unwilling to accept help. And I think it goes back to that early conversation Andy was saying about trust, because if we don't feel like a safe place for them, whether we as providers, we as parents, whatever whatever role you're playing in relation to these kids, if we don't feel safe and they don't trust that we're going to see them for who they are, without judgment, without interpreting their behavior, then they're going to be hesitant to engage. If what I say to the parents in my community a lot is, if we think we're trying to help them, but it doesn't feel helpful to them, then it's not really help, right? It's imposing our agenda on them. And so we have to make sure that when we're offering help, we're offering help that feels helpful to them, or enrolling them, and in being open to asking for help or accepting help in the first place. So so like when we think about why don't they? Maybe they're afraid that they're not ready to do what's being asked. Maybe they're feeling stressed and triggered, which is going to shut down their capacity for executive function and to follow through. They may not feel like it's their agenda, so we may be imposing our agenda on them. But was with a group of parents of teens today, and we were talking about the, you know, is it real buy in, or are you just getting Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Because yeah, yeah, yeah, may not actually be their agenda. So we think they've said yes to the agenda, but it's really ours, not theirs. Again. Maybe they don't feel safe. We're quite trusting that we're going to let them do it their way, or then we're not going to impose our agenda on them. They don't want to feel judged. And if we're interpreting their behavior as anything other than, wow, this is hard for you. Or, you know, we can see you're struggling with this. Or, you know, if we are judging them in any way, even unintentionally, where they begin to feel like it's kind of a moral assessment of them instead of, wow, you're struggling with something, they're going to push back or resist, and then they're teenage boys. They don't want to need help like, nobody wants to need it. We're terrible about it, like, let's be honest, we're terrible as adults about asking for help. And, you know, when I talk to parents about it all the time, like, I don't cut my own hair, I don't do my own taxes, I've learned to ask for help, but it's a skill set we have to learn, because we're kind of raised in a culture that says we're supposed to do this all on our own. So there are a lot of really legitimate reasons, I think, that they resist it. And so instead of imposing it our the opportunity for us is to kind of enroll them in seeing what's in it for them, what's the value to them, instead of why aren't you accepting this.

Sheila Akbar: 20:21

I'm just nodding so vigorously with everything that you're saying here? Andy, I'm curious with all the things that Elaine just shared about why a teenage boy might not be asking for help, where do you often start with somebody who may be a little skeptical, you know, but by the time they get to a session with you, they've either, yeah, yeah, their parents, and that's why they're there, or maybe they really do have some hope that things could be better, or they could change. But, you know, maybe you don't know that the first time you meet them. So where do you start?

Andrew Friedman: 20:55

I start with about 1000 questions. I come from a place, and there's sort of two purposes to that. One is to actually understand in the finest detail possible, everything about not only the issue they're coming for, whether it's procrastination, organization or whatever, but just the whole texture of their lives, right? And so I just and I tell them, I said, Hey, this first session, I'm just going to pepper you with questions. You can pass on any of them. You can ask me questions, but I just really want to know everything. So as I said, there's two points there. One is that is actually the information. Two is to establish this posture of curiosity and and I've been doing this for a few years, I actually love the nitty gritty art, and I think that comes through, it says, I'm not, I'm not faking it. I actually really want to know, like, what are the rhythms of your day? You know, how do you tick? And I suppose there's really a third part now that I think about it, which is, get them to start noticing things on their own, which, you know, is beautiful when it happens. And then they come up with the idea, it's like, oh, I never realized that. That's the first thing I do when I come home, right? And I guess it's because no one's ever asked them, right? And it's like, oh yeah. Well, if I do that, the chances of getting started on work are probably not going to be great. And then I'll say, Well, what do you think a better move might be? And how can you know? And then go through the rest of sort of the logistics of all of that. So that tends to be where I start, but I also try to meet them where they are. So if it seems like that, you know, slightly intense interview is not, is not where they want to be. And maybe there's sort of more resistance to opening up even on those issues. Then, you know, then I'll be a little gentler. Try to ask more open questions, less targeted questions, and you know, see where the conversation takes us.

Sheila Akbar: 22:48

That's helpful. Elaine, I know you have a lot of strategies for parents, and you should all know that impact parents has actually prepared a really great resource for you that you will all get. So I don't want you to feel like, Oh, God, I have to, like, take notes and memorize all of these things. You will get all of these resources. But Elaine Do you want to share? You know, when you're not working directly with the student, how do you help parents through that? Because, you know, usually there's so much tension built up in that parent child relationship already that sometimes it's impossible to even ask the most basic question, like, what do you do the first thing you get home, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 23:23

So, again, there are a lot of answers to that. And I often say to parents, you know, it took you 17 years or 15 years to get to this point. It's going to take a little time to turn it around, right? And I was listening to what you were saying, Andy, and you earlier, Blair about like, So Andy, what you're saying is you ask questions, and part of it is with a guise towards raising their self awareness. And part of our job is to generally be raising their self awareness without them knowing we're doing it right. So it's not interrogating them with questions. It's actually being interested and engaged in what's going on for you and what works for you. The strategy that came up to me as I was listening to you Andy, that we talk to parents about a lot, is that the solutions are in the successes. And success breeds success. So if we look at what's working for them, then we can begin to apply that. And like when back in the day, when I used to coach students, I remember coaching a 14 year old girl through the process of learning from she had planned a spend the night party, and we went through the whole thing, and she had called other parents and all this stuff, and then we figured out, how do you map the success of that planning that she did to her homework? Because the solution was in her success, and I could have given her something that never would have worked nearly as well as what she figured out, because she looked at what worked for her. And that's what I hear you describing, Andy, and I want to go back to something you said earlier, Blair, which is that conversations don't all have to happen at one time. We call it dropping breadcrumbs, right? And so sometimes you kind of drop a little bit breadcrumb, and then you leave it, and then you come back, and then you leave it so you allow a conversation to happen over a series of hours or days or even even weeks, so that they get some engagement. Oftentimes, we come to conversations with our kids, and we've been thinking about it all day or all week, and we've been private like we have, and they they it's like we catch them off guard because they're like, thinking about what happened in at the lunch room today, or with that person down the hall or and we come to them and we expect an answer, or we expect them to have a thoughtful response, and they haven't been thinking about it. So sometimes we have to drop the breadcrumbs and say, you know, well, it's okay if you don't know, think about it. Let me know. Let's talk about it later, like really casually, but to introduce notions and concepts and kind of invite, I often say to parents, our job as parents is to be an invitation to our kids, we want to be an invitation to relationship. We want them to know we want to be in relationship with them, that we actually kind of like them and think they're really cool and interesting, even if sometimes they're a little weirder than we would like them to be. And if we're an invitation and they actually really feel like we want to be in relationship with them, that will build the trust and that will that will build our ability to acknowledge when things are going on for them, that that they're struggling with, and for them to actually believe it when we when we say, wow, it looks like you're having a hard time. Would you like some help with that? They're going to be much more receptive if we've worked on that ground, foundation of relationship, and built some trust so that our communication is happening more authentically.

Sheila Akbar: 26:48

I think that's such an important reminder that it takes, it takes some time to build that trust, or to turn the bus around, if it's been going in one direction, you know, for them to believe that things are really going to be different.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 27:01

Just one more thing I want to say going back to the beginning of what you said, parenting is a daily process in letting go. We have to let go of what we expect it to be, or want it to be, or think it should be, to allow it to be what it is and to allow them to be who they are. And that's as to what you were saying earlier. That's our work, right? We have to get our stuff out of the way so that we can be present to who they are and what their journey is, instead of trying to make sure they're fulfilling our journey.

Sheila Akbar: 27:34

Yeah. I mean, that really landed. So thank you so much for sharing that. Emmaline and Blair. I'm curious if you have anything to add in terms of, you know, where you start with people, any of the things that we've just been talking about since you last talked.

Emmaline Cook: 27:47

I just, I'm going to throw in a quick metaphor, because I think it's helpful. This comes up a lot in executive function teachings. It's a funnel, a clogged funnel. So if you just think of how many things are going into your teen's brain every day, and when it comes to trying to figure out, like, what to do next, how to start doing things, if everything is on top of their head and they can't get through any of it, if that funnel is clogged, then nothing is going to come out. So before you try to, you know, kind of, I mean, you can start with pinpointing individual things, but just understanding that, like the very first time you broached this topic, it might be a big old jumbled mess, and that's fine, but it's just something that has to be sorted through before you can actually work out each thing.

Sheila Akbar: 28:36

That's really helpful. Yeah. Blair, what would you add?

Blair Munhofen: 28:40

Yeah, I mean, I think I really like what, what Andy had to say, as far as demonstrating genuine interest, as being kind of a basis of developing the trust and the relationships, I know that's from a coach. I think I'm mindful of we're approaching it from a different place, where there's no baggage, potentially, right? And so I think that's oftentimes why having a coach can be really helpful, is that they're they're kind of tabula rasa, so they can demonstrate that, like what Elaine you were saying, is, with the parentings, well, you have 17 years of stuff that can make it challenging to recalibrate some of the relationship. And coaches have the unique opportunity to come in without some of that. And so I think that that's something that you know, as you think about, as a caregiver, a parent, where might coaching fit in. You know, there is that opportunity to have someone who can kind of help lead some of that change. I think also, the other thing that I would add is, and I kind of submitted to effect this earlier. It's just that timetable is is really something as a as someone in a young person's life, is recognizing that the timetable that you want isn't necessarily the timetable you're working with. And I think that's probably the hardest thing the of the work I do with parents on that side of it and coaching students is that most people want things done yesterday, and the reality is that the kids are working on a very different timetable, and a lot of kids are helping or communicating with them that their timetable is their timetable, I think, is something that's really important, and that that takes again, a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of trust, and that can be a real challenge if, if that's a realization that's happening, you know, later in adolescence.

Sheila Akbar: 30:34

Yeah, that's a really good point, and it makes me think of something that's kind of going unsaid here, but a lot of times that parents feel a sense of urgency around executive functions. It could be just like home life is a disaster, right? The room is never clean. They're never really doing, I don't know, chores or whatever it is, that's perfectly possible and probably very common, but most of the time, I find that when people are reaching out for the kind of help that we offer. It's because they're worried about grades and performance in school, and indirectly, they may not be there yet, but they're worried about the future. They're worried about college. They're worried about will this kid be able to hold down a job? Like what is going to happen to their future? Right? And I think that, because that college timetable seems so set in stone, and it's, in fact, sort of a ritual, like a rite of passage in our society, you graduate high school and you go off to college, it feels like a very clear timeframe that everybody's got their expectations sort of reference to I think it's worth discussing that a little bit, because that may not be your child's timeline, that may not be your child's path. It may be the path they end up taking, but they may get there a different way than you did, or a different way than you expect them to. But just going to spend a minute here to talk about how executive functions might show up in a college application, right? The college application itself is a very complicated process with a lot of moving pieces that need to be sequenced. Right? You're choosing classes, you're getting involved in extracurriculars, you're planning summers, you're choosing schools, you're taking maybe an SAT or an act. You're writing all of these essays. Every one of those things requires some serious executive functioning skills in order to get them done and to get them done well so that we can think of as like the boss fight of adolescents like this is the big challenge that they're working up to. And of course, for them to thrive in a college, they are going to need to be able to rely on themselves for getting up on time, knowing what their work is. Where do they go for this class? How do they register for that thing? Like, you know, all of that, right? So it's really important not to worry about the timeline so much, but to focus on building the skills that will enable them to go through that process with, you know, it's always stressful. I have never seen anyone have a not stressful college process, no matter what kind of kid they have, but with minimal stress and with your relationships intact. And you know, colleges do care about these things. I mean, one way they measure it is in the grades. And you know, how advanced and rigorous are the classes that students are taking, but they actually explicitly ask about it in teacher recommendations, so your teachers are going to have to comment on whether your students academic habits are disciplined. And let's vary by, let's say fraught language, but they're talking about executive functioning habits there. And so it is worth your investment of time and energy to make sure your student has what they need right because they're going to come up against bigger and bigger challenges as time goes on. And focus less on the timeline, but more on the skill. Anybody have anything they want to add on that perspective, maybe. Andy, you work with students ad Blair, you used to do this as well coach students through the college admissions process, Andy, you're doing it more regularly these days in terms of just getting people writing. How do you feel about that?

Blair Munhofen: 34:08

The immediate reaction Sheila that I had as you're describing that is it goes right back to what Andy was saying about self awareness, and students who are self aware are going to shine through in the college process, even if the self awareness is I have challenges. And I think that's one of the and that goes back to, I think what Elaine was saying of like, the fear of I'm not I don't want to do if I'm not good at it, right? And, and I think some of the most beautiful application essays, the most beautiful. And I working at a school, I write recommendation letters. I review recommendation letters. I mean, some of the most beautiful things written about a student or that a student writes, are going to be about the challenges that they face, and not just how they've overcome it and come out on top, and they're the best, right? It's oftentimes the ones they're still learning how to manage. And so what's interesting is, with a kid with executive functioning, and that can manifest challenges, can manifest so many different ways, is that's actually really fertile territory to dig into some self awareness, and that can actually really make an application demonstrate that, right? So I just, I think Andy's insight on the building, the self awareness piece, is so huge in that college process.

Sheila Akbar: 35:30

Thanks, Andy. Anything you would add?

Andrew Friedman: 35:33

I couldn't agree more. Well, it's just interesting how, you know, I wear a few different hats that submit, as Sheila mentioned in the intro, and maybe next to or tied with coaching my my other favorite thing is helping students write their college essays, which I approach as a coach as well as a grammar geek and all of that stuff. But that's that I can't control, and some of the best experiences I've had is is actually using that process to effect some new level of self realization, you know? And it's kind of sneaky of me to do it in a way, I guess, if any of my tactics are sneaky, but they're, they're, you know, they're beneficent, I think. And I, you know, when I get to get a chance to work with a student for over a few months, sometimes it's amazing. You start with, you know, close to, not well, zero self reflection. And slowly, but slowly and speaking to the timetable, right? You can't, you can't rush this sort of thing. You actually see them maturing before your eyes. And it's like, you know, toward the end, you have some, some of these realizations that they absolutely were not capable of three months ago. And that's really kind of a magical part of the job. That's, yeah, brilliant to see.

Sheila Akbar: 36:56

I couldn't agree more. And Andy, you work with so many of my admission students, particularly my male ones, and I've seen it happen so many times, and I'm like, wow, how did you get this at them? And it is just that, you know, continued trusting relationship where you're just, you know, pointing maybe some breadcrumbs, leading them in this little direction, just seeing how they react to it. Emmaline, I'm curious what you've been thinking about as we've been talking about all of these things.

Emmaline Cook: 37:25

I'm still on the some of these things we all do, and some of these things are an issue bit, just because my other life is neuropsych testing, I just want to reiterate that, you know, sometimes there really is a neurological thing that's going on that might require help from a psychologist or somebody that deals with learning differences, and sometimes you might just need a coach for executive function. But those are two separate things, and one of these things comes from a diagnosis, and there's, you know, a sort of medical treatment, and then one of these things is like a person, like we are all. We all could use help on these skills, and that's more what a coach is for so everyone could use a coach, probably in some capacity. Not every student needs a full neuro psych write up, but some of them do. So if you feel like it really is, you know, bleeding into every aspect of their life, it might be worth checking out the psychology side of it.

Sheila Akbar: 38:32

That's a great point. And I think a couple of things that I've heard from clients that has made me say, well, maybe we should do a neuropsych certainly, if you're hearing things from teachers, if you're seeing a big discrepancy in, you know, how hard they're working and what the results seem to be, their grades or their, you know, comments from teacher, if there's just, like, a huge discrepancy there, sometimes it's like, you know, they're a great student and they're you never have to remind them about homework and all these things. But then they do something like a PSAT, and it is so far below where you think they would score. I'm not saying that immediately triggers a neuro psych it certainly deserves a conversation to see like, well, what's going on here, right? But that's a really good point to bring up here. Not everybody needs that, but in some cases, it's worth doing kind of more investigation to see, is this something that's going to resolve with experience and coaching, or is there something else we need to do here?

Guest 1: 39:27

What I'm seeing is a tendency for one part of academia, like it's very gifted with numbers, very you know all that. But then when the writing comes in, we have some limiting beliefs that I'm kind of working through with him. But my concern as I'm hearing you guys share is, you know, how do we what are things that we can do as parents when we see that these children have tendencies to go with what feels comfortable with, what comes natural when the other part of this the writing or the creativity, or maybe for your kid, it's the other way around. It's the numbers that needs to be nurtured and honed. But I mean, how do we I see the importance of it, but they may not, and meeting them where they're at, and I don't know.

Sheila Akbar: 40:16

Thank you for sharing. I will say one of the things that I have found really impactful with any kind of student I'm working with is to show them that where they struggle is where they need to lean in. Right? This thing is hard for me. That doesn't mean you should avoid it. It means let's figure out why it's hard. Let's figure out if there's skills that we can build, if there are people we can talk to to help us wrap our head around what this thing is that I need to do. So I think that there's like a mindset sort of thing that you can just, you know, continually beat that drum and talking about your own failures and challenges and how you may have worked through them, not directly to your kid, but around your kid so that they can overhear. It is like a really great, great strategy there. I'm going to open it up to the rest of our panelists. What do you say when, when this sort of thing is going on, when a kid really wants to lean into the things only that they're good at, and not the rest?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 41:12

Well, there are two things that come up to me around that. One is that there's a lot of evidence allowing kids to lead, to take a strength based approach and leaning into to the what they're good at. Mean, I have a kid who really, really, really struggled in school, and at some point, when they were about eight, we finally figured out we needed to stop leaning into that performance paradigm that says you're you're struggling at this. So let's spend all your time focusing on this. And you know that old modality is not going to serve our kids. So a strength based approach is beautiful, and I love exactly what you said, Sheila, which is, we want to keep inviting them to challenge themselves in the areas. The other thing that I think is really important, particularly for these what you're describing, is kids who are really bright in some areas, maybe challenged in others, like bright, quirky kids, is that I like to say that these kids are specialists, and school is a generalist world, and so we're often trying to treat them, these bright kids, as if they should be really bright and specialists in all areas, because they're bright here, and the truth is that they may be really bright in math and science, and they may really always need a little support in language arts, and we may need to expect, you know, a different level of performance in the language arts than we do in math and science. And so we really want to play to their strengths and lean into their zones of excellence and genius, but not expect them to be genius at everything.

Sheila Akbar: 42:44

That's a great point. Yeah, do you have something you want to add to this?

Blair Munhofen: 42:47

I think Elaine, you probably said it much more eloquently than I would have but, but this idea of recognizing that sometimes you just have to be good enough in certain areas, and I think I will say, especially as teenage boy's age that honesty and authenticity is deeply valued. It's the kind of like, like, if I was talking to a child, or even my own son, who I could very foresee this happening like five years is, Look, dude, you don't need to be the best at it. You just need to be good enough, right? And sometimes, and I do think this is one thought that requires a much longer conversation, but I think fundamentally, boys need mentors, and as a society, we're really struggling with that. So I'll say, like, that's like a whole nother webinar, and I think it is related to, sorry, I'm kind of fanboying Andy right now, but like, I think it goes back to building the trust. And so when they find that person that they trust, then the child hearing it from that person means all, all the right, that like that real talk, and often times from another male, you know, but that person being able to say so maybe dad's the one who says, like, look, just good enough sometimes is great, right? And that becoming a family value, I think, can be really powerful for those for those relationships in your family. That's just the other thing I would add.

Sheila Akbar: 44:18

That's a great point. We know these executive functions affect every aspect of a person's life, and what we've seen, sort of a little bit tragically, is a lot of students, young people, because that's who we work with, who don't have a conversation about what might be going on neurologically, and then they internalize their challenges as some sort of failure of their own will, or a moral failure. Everybody else is just smarter, and I'm stupid. I can't figure it out. And it's, you know, we often see, you know, mental health issues that that go along with a lot of these challenges, because nobody's had that explicit conversation with them. So I really appreciate you raising that point, and can be immensely helpful for just life in general.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: 45:03

If we don't give our kids an explanation for what they're struggling with, what they're gonna make up is a whole lot worse, and they're gonna make up that they're lazy, crazy or stupid.

Sheila Akbar: 45:13

Yeah, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspectives. All right, folks, I really hope you found that helpful. We had a really wonderful and engaged audience and a lot of great questions, some of which, you know, we kept, some of which we had to cut for time. But I hope that entices you to come to one of these events live, so you can experience those exchanges and maybe have some of your own questions answered, because we did really get some some great people in here. Our next free event is happening at the end of May, where we are actually going to be talking about getting started on those college essays, and we will have a number of our writing coaches and Admissions Consultants talking about how to get started and the places they see people getting stuck and how to move through those hurdles. So please join us. That will be the evening of May 22 and you can check our website for more details and to get the link. All right, everybody, we'll see you next time. Thank you.